


negative space

by nnozomi



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nnozomi/pseuds/nnozomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't happen that often.</p>
            </blockquote>





	negative space

It doesn’t happen that often. It’s almost always on the flight deck at the end of a flight, after the Hoover noises from the cabin have died away. They don’t go home together, to Martin’s rickety cot or Douglas’ overgenerous king-size bed. They don’t kiss passionately, hold hands, murmur sweet nothings—or anything at all. They don’t talk while it’s happening, except for the occasional banal exchange of coordinates. In the end Martin gasps and arches his back, or Douglas grinds his chin down hard into the crown of Martin’s head, and that’s that.

Arthur takes the whole thing for granted. It’s a bit funny that Skip and Douglas don’t talk about it, but there are some things people just don’t talk about, and that’s how it is. The only thing that worries him is that sometimes the things people don’t talk about are the things that aren’t so brilliant—like Dad—and he hopes that’s not why. Only this is Douglas and Skip, so he can’t imagine how it couldn’t be pretty brilliant.

Carolyn is, grimly, resigned to the fact that her pilots will never stop coming up with ways to increase the stress quotient in her life. She would have been happier if they’d stuck to word games; that way she wouldn’t have to worry about the day one of them will come to her and say he can’t work with the other man any more. (At least she knows that it will always be “…so I’m resigning,” not “…so you fire him or I resign.” In their own ways, they neither of them lack for integrity.)

The word games still go on, of course, and Douglas still schemes for advantage (and gets away with it nine times out of ten). Martin is still a stickler for the regulations. If anything changes in the flight deck during a flight, it’s that they spend more time talking flying: windspeed and drag, tricks for making the most of a landing at obscure airports all over Europe, flying by radar through bad weather. Deep in the finicky technical arguments is where they can feel the pull and lee of trust most clearly.

They both think of it as their own, singular secret. Martin wouldn’t mind so much Carolyn and Arthur knowing what he and Douglas sometimes do in the flight deck, but he’d be so ashamed if Douglas were to find out about it. Douglas holds that his mind to him a kingdom is, he’s entitled to his fair share of privacy (and then some) and just because the body on his in the flight deck is Martin’s, that doesn’t mean he’s obligated to tell Martin about it.

It really doesn’t happen that often. They are a good pilot and a safe pilot, and they know better than to cut it that close, any more than they have to.


End file.
